Our Equal Silence
by CampionSayn
Summary: This place in time and this family life-style comes from the same root as a mirror. A continuation of RMMB's 'Our Little Secret' because I accepted the challenge. Rated for safety. Minor Batman Comics crossover.


Title: Our Equal Silence  
Summary: This place in time and this family life-style comes from the same root as a mirror. A continuation of RMMB's 'Our Little Secret' because I accepted the challenge.  
Warning: If you haven't read '_Our Little Secret'_ then you SHOULD. Also…mentions of violence, hinted incest, dub-con, mental agony… in short—ANGST. Angst everywhere. Or it could be horror, I'm not really sure if there's much of a difference…  
Dedication: To _RMMB_, for accepting my statement that THIS was the piece I was going to continue on—even though it feels like I'm desecrating the Mona Lisa, or something equally as stressful.

* * *

_-:-  
Practical politics consist of ignoring facts.  
-Henry Brooks Adams._

* * *

Ghoul can remember their collection of personals when they moved in with the rest of the Jokerz into the candy factory that became the girls' second (not so very comfortable or nice) home. He can also remember what it weighed into altogether.

192 pounds altogether.

Let him explain what 'personals' translate into for a pair of girls that don't measure into seventeen years each but for another two weeks and seven days.

Personals include their skin, the hats with raggedy red yarn woven inside like velvet snakes, the yellow hair that actually grows from their scalps wrapped tight so as not to come loose beneath their hats; the sheer thin shorts and top they each wore that bore no protection from wind or rain or worse than that, the boots that lined up to their knees and provided very little protection if they landed wrong on the ground, the same kind of purple polish on their nails that chipped during their exercise.

That is what they share in equality.

In their inequality, Delia weighed the hundred in all its triple digit glory with a small packet of stolen pills in her pocket that she occasionally shared to bring the mood up or bring the mood down among all of the gang, a pound of rich Caribbean chocolate lining her stomach mixed with the semen and blood she'd ingested and always seemed to ingest as often as possible, the single cut along her knuckles she'd gotten from punching her sister with some city grime decorating the scabbing. Not to mention the four silver ball piercings she wore in her ears and her tits when they weren't out looting department stores or getting in turf wars with the Splicers that had been making a more prominent name for themselves.

In their inequality, Deidre weighed the ninety-two as long as she managed to eat something on any given day, not to mention her own blood in her stomach caused by vomiting up the wine she drank when Delia egged her on most evenings, the little yellow and pink handkerchief that smelled of opium and sunshine because she'd broken their grandmother's perfume bottle once and the handkerchief was perfect to use to hide and remove the evidence; there was also the blood from losing her virginity still inside her and leaking onto her underwear, bruising along her hips and ankles and breasts with dirt in the half-moon indentations caused by sharp fingernails breaking the skin.

Personals shouldn't matter to the blonde hacker who spent as little time with the girls as possible, but it did mean something if it was going to affect him one way or another.

And what went on with the two of them disturbed him, so it did affect him.

He couldn't find his way into understanding how it was that the two of them, out on the field, were like the same wicked, nasty person with two bodies to operate and inflict damage on the world, but when they got back to the comfort of home, Delia became the dominant and Deidre became submissive and it was like they were married—everything so messed up.

Delia existed in a home setting to cause discomfort and remorse and to push everything to the very limit—this included her sister and Ghoul often found himself standing in the kitchen in the middle of the night to find the door to the hide-out banging open and Deidre dragging Delia slung over her shoulder, falling down drunk so the smaller girl could tuck the other in, close the door to that bedroom and then immediately haul herself to the bathroom to either vomit or wash herself in ice or fire water until dawn peeked into the Gotham skyline.

And then the cycle repeated itself. Sometimes Delia would haul Deidre in, but never drunk, just unable to support herself because someone had taken to beating her into a concussion or into torn lungs from screaming or into downer drugs that made it into the blood much too quickly (_not suicide, just something to dull the inevitable pain_).

Ghoul took note that none of this seemed to be because of love. Or, at least… No. It wasn't out of love.

* * *

Ace could remember the master's son from when the black Dane was a puppy fresh from the gutter and barely able to understand the good things from the bad—from sight or sound or scent. He couldn't, at the time, understand why he wasn't supposed to chew on shoes or lick up the strong dark stuff from puddles on a sidewalk or bark at the sounds of leaves and birds and what he thought could be rabbits but turned out to just be the wind. He could, however, recognize a threat when he saw it; be it a rat sneaking around to spread disease or its disgusting feces, or fire that bit at the skin before devouring and melting it.

The master's blood son was most definitely a threat. The others were mostly perfect (_well, maybe not the one with the lightning white streak, but that was because his smell reminded Ace of the sky when it pounded the earth with rain and of an entire pile of ashes and coals dry in a pit_) and that included the new one that seemed to annoy everyone, but was getting better at not getting on Ace's own nerves. The tall one with blue eyes of a wolf in heat was never to be trusted no matter how often the master scolded Ace for baring his teeth and warning the blood son to 'not touch the pup' or else.

Nights came, few and far between, for the blood son to come into the city and meet with the pack, show his teeth in that friendly way, prowl around the mansion touching things and speaking about 'family honor' and 'training schedules' and 'if there's anything I can do to help' like he actually cared about anybody when Ace knew that smell on him was only disgust and ridicule and heat pooling in his belly in the presence of the pup. There was a not right at all lust in him for the littlest boy under the master's watchful eye and none of the others could notice (_how could humans survive with their complete lack of senses, Ace would like to know someday_) so Ace took up the responsibility of staying right at the young one's hip when the 'Damian' came and until the 'Damian' went away again.

But, the clever dog was very aware, that didn't mean that Ace could always protect the 'Terry' pup.

Some weeks came and Ace would bound to the sound of the doors of the house opening for the pup, his paws tramping up the staircase in the deep dark behind the chiming box, ready to pounce on the boy in greeting—to keep him in shape, only, of course. When he came into sight, his eyes would be on the ground and sometimes his arms would be wrapped around his stomach before they opened wide to catch Ace around the shoulders and scratch at his ears and nose.

The smell of Damian on him is so strong in those moments, around Terry's genitals and hands and fingernails (_blood belonging to the elder as well as the younger dried on the nailbeds_) and _**mouth**_, that it takes, often times, great resolve and memory of training not to bolt away from the boy and then go and track down Damian so he could rip his throat out for taking advantage of the pup.

The strangest thing, however, is that there is rarely the scent of resistance on the boy.

There is measured fear, a stagnant smell that clings to the roof of Ace's mouth even if he caught rabbits after and tried to wash the smell away with the taste of blood and fur; there is fear and bile and shame, but never resistance.

Ace cannot understand these people.

He cannot understand why they do these things, but he still stays to lick away the smell and taste and—hopefully—the _**feeling**_ of Damian's tongue and fingers and body fluids on Terry's face with his drooling pink tongue. He ignores the taste of saltwater on Terry's cheeks as well as he can and focuses on the playful smile Terry gives when Ace finishes his cleaning and they both fall into step walking back down into the dark.

These are the memories he hopes the pup keeps as his own training and nothing before or after.


End file.
